Alva Courses is a Shopify app that lets language tutors build, sell and deliver structured language courses entirely inside their store. A language course is naturally level-based and media-rich: dialogue audio, video explanations, vocabulary tables, quizzes and live conversation practice, released in sequence. Everything below runs through your existing Shopify store, checkout and customer accounts — there is no separate tutoring platform to manage.
The steps assume a working Shopify store and something to teach: a beginner Spanish syllabus, an IELTS prep track, a business-English programme. Follow them in order — later steps depend on earlier ones — and you finish with a course students can enrol in at checkout.
Why sell a language course on Shopify instead of one-off tutoring?
One-to-one tutoring trades hours for money and caps your income at the calendar. A packaged language course sells the same syllabus to many students at once, frees your live hours for conversation practice, and keeps billing, enrolment and delivery in one place. On Shopify, the course is just another product at your normal checkout.
Step 1: Install Alva Courses and structure the course as levels
Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store; it embeds in your Shopify admin with no second dashboard. Create a course — for example "Spanish A1–B1" — then use the drag-and-drop builder to add a section per level and a lesson per unit. Reorder by dragging, and use "Create Multiple" to spin up a whole level's worth of unit lessons at once.
Map the CEFR levels to sections
A language syllabus has obvious seams. Make each level — A1, A2, B1 — a section, and each unit a lesson inside it. The member sidebar then mirrors the syllabus, so students always see where they are and what comes next. Clear structure also makes dripping and gating, later in this guide, trivial to set up.
Step 2: Fill lessons with audio, video and vocabulary
Language learning lives on sound, so every lesson in Alva Courses supports an Audio block for dialogue, pronunciation drills and listening exercises, plus a Video block for spoken explanations. Host videos on Alva or embed YouTube, Vimeo, VdoCipher or Loom. Add vocabulary tables, images and PDFs in the same rich-text lesson — everything a unit needs in one place.
Audio and video, mixed per unit
A typical unit pairs a dialogue Audio block, a short grammar Video, a vocabulary table and a worksheet PDF. Students play each directly in the storefront course player on any device. For tips on recording lessons that hold attention, read how to make course videos.
Step 3: Quiz vocabulary and grammar, then gate the next unit
Build a quiz inside any lesson to test vocabulary, grammar and comprehension at the end of each unit. Pair the quiz with "Require completion before next lesson" so a learner must work through the material before the next unit unlocks. Sequential gating keeps students honest about their progress and gives you a clear signal of who has actually absorbed each level.
Gating turns a passive download into a guided path
A flat folder of PDFs lets students skip the hard units. Quizzes plus sequential gating force mastery before progress, which lifts completion rates and gives finishers a real sense of achievement — the thing that earns referrals in language teaching.
Step 4: Drip the levels so students learn in sequence
Releasing a whole syllabus at once overwhelms beginners. Alva Courses drips whole sections or single lessons a set number of days after enrolment, so A1 opens immediately, A2 unlocks after fourteen days, and B1 a month later. You can also schedule a lesson to publish on a fixed date or hold it as a draft — see drip-feeding course content for timing strategy.
Step 5: Add live conversation classes with Zoom blocks
Self-paced modules teach grammar; live practice teaches fluency. Add a Zoom block to any lesson — for example a weekly "Live practice" lesson — to share this week's conversation-class link inside the course. Use a Button block to point students at a booking page for one-to-one slots, so your self-paced course and your live tutoring sit in the same place.
Step 6: Turn on discussions for questions between classes
Language learners always have questions: a tense that won't stick, an idiom they misheard. Alva Courses adds a native per-lesson comment system with moderation tools, so students ask exactly where they are stuck. You are emailed when a student comments, and students are emailed when you reply — keeping the conversation attached to each unit instead of scattered across email or a separate chat app.
Step 7: Award a certificate when a student finishes a level
Completing a level deserves a reward. Alva Courses awards a custom-designed completion certificate automatically when a student finishes the course, and emails it to them. Build a separate course per level so each one earns its own certificate, or gate sections inside a single course. For setup detail, read adding course completion certificates on Shopify.
Step 8: Link the course to a Shopify product and sell it
Every course connects to a standard Shopify product, so pricing and checkout work exactly like any product you sell. Link the course in Alva Courses, and the product becomes the enrol button on your storefront — inheriting your theme, collections, discounts and the normal Shopify checkout. Use limited-time access to sell a 90- or 365-day pass to a level if you want enrolment to expire.
Delivery and the My Courses player
When an order is paid, Alva Courses enrols the buyer and delivers access three ways: a branded enrolment email with a "Start Learning Now" button, plus access links on the Thank-You and Order Status pages via Shopify extensions. Students open My Courses in their Shopify customer account and play lessons in a storefront player with a lesson sidebar, progress bar and completion ticks.
Step 9: Track who finished A1 and who stalled at unit three
Each course has a Members Overview with total members, active enrolments, completions, completion rate and per-student progress bars with enrolment dates. A global Members view spans every level you sell, where you can search, filter, manually add a student, bulk import existing students via CSV and export to CSV. Use it to spot stalled learners and nudge them before they churn.
Migrating students you already teach
Most tutors arrive with an existing roster from Zoom, a spreadsheet or a marketplace. Use bulk CSV import to add your current students in one pass, or Add Member manually for one-offs. Imported students appear in the same Members view as new buyers, with the same progress tracking and discussion access — so moving onto Shopify does not split your audience across two systems.
How should I price and package a language course on Shopify?
Package by level so price scales with depth: sell A1 as an entry product, then A2 and B1 as the next steps, or bundle the full A1–B1 track at a discount. Pair recorded levels with a higher tier that adds live conversation classes. For deeper guidance, read Alva Courses for language tutors and the pricing guide below.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. With a course app like Alva Courses, you build a structured language course inside Shopify and link it to a standard Shopify product, so students buy at your normal checkout. Once paid, Alva Courses enrols them and opens a branded storefront course player in their Shopify customer account — with audio, video, quizzes and progress tracking, and no separate platform or second login.
Yes. Every lesson in Alva Courses supports an Audio content block, so you can add dialogue recordings, pronunciation drills and listening exercises alongside text, vocabulary tables and images. Mix audio with video lessons and a quiz at the end of each unit. Students play audio directly in the Shopify storefront course player on any device — no second app to download.
Alva Courses drips whole sections or single lessons a set number of days after a student enrols. Release A1 immediately, unlock A2 after fourteen days, then B1 a month later. You can also schedule a lesson to publish on a fixed date or keep it as a draft, and require completion of one unit before the next unlocks. Dripping paces learners through a structured syllabus instead of overwhelming them on day one.
Yes. Add a Zoom block to any lesson to share a live conversation-class link, so self-paced modules and live sessions sit in the same course. Use a Button block to point students to a booking page. Native per-lesson discussions let learners ask questions and you reply, and you get an email notification whenever a student comments.
Yes. Alva Courses awards a custom-designed completion certificate automatically when a student finishes the course, and emails it to them. Build a separate course per level — A1, A2, B1 — so each completion earns its own certificate, or run one course with gated sections. Progress tracking shows each student's completion percentage so you can see who finished and who stalled.
Alva Courses has two plans, each with a 14-day free trial. Unlimited is $9.99/month for unlimited courses, members, drip scheduling, audio and video lessons, quizzes, certificates and discussions, with Shopify-hosted video capped at 1 GB or 10 minutes per video. Unlimited Pro is $14.99/month and adds Alva Video Hosting with 50 GB and no per-video limits, which suits tutors with large libraries of recorded conversation classes.